PRAEFECT US URBI

praefect or warden of the city, was originally called Custos Urbis . The name praefect us urb i does not seem to have been used till after the time of the decemvirs. The dignity of custos urb is , being combined with that of princeps senatus , was conferred by the king, as he had to appoint one of the decem primi as princeps senatus. The functions of the custos urb is , however, were not exercised except in the absence of the king from Rome; and then he acted as the representative of the king: he convoked the senate, held the comitia, if nece ary, and on any emergency, might take such measures as he thought proper; in short, he had the imperium in the city. During the kingly period, the office of custos urb is was probably for life. Under the republic, the office, and its name of custos urb is , remained unaltered; but in B.C. 487 it was elevated into a magistracy, to be bestowed by election. The custos urb is was, in all probability, elected by the curiae. Persons of consular rank were alone eligible. In the early period of the republic the custos urb is exercised within the city all the powers of the consuls, if they were absent: he convoked the senate, held the comitia, and, in times of war, even levied civic legions, which were commanded by him. When the office of praetor urban us was instituted, the wardenship of the city was swallowed up in it; but as the Romans were at all times averse to dropping altogether any of their old institutions, a praefect us urb i, though a mere shadow of the former office, was henceforth appointed every year, only for the time that the consuls were absent from Rome for the purpose of celebrating the Feriae Latinae. This praefect us had neither the power of convoking the senate nor the right of speaking in it; in most cases he was a person below the senatorial age, and was not appointed by the people, but by the consuls. An office very different from this, though bearing the same name, was instituted by August us on the suggestion of Maecenas. This new praefect us urb i was a regular and permanent magistrate, whom August us invested with all the powers nece ary to maintain peace and order in the city. He had the superintendence of butchers, bankers, guardians, theatres, .; and to enable him to exercise his power, he had distributed throughout the city a number of milites stationarii, whom we may compare to a modern police. His jurisdiction, however, became gradually extended; and as the powers of the ancient republican praefect us urb i had been swallowed up by the office of the praetor urban us, so now the power of the praetor urban us was gradually absorbed by that of the praefect us urb i; and at last there was no appeal from his sentence, except to the person of the princeps himself, while any body might appeal from the sentence of any other city magistrate, and, at a later period, even from that of a governor of a province, to the tribunal of the praefect us urb i.